‘Desperate women’ using abortion pills could face life in prison, charity warns

Under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act any woman who uses medication to procure her own abortion is committing a criminal offence punishable by up to life imprisonment (Photo: Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images)

Hundreds of doses of abortion medication were seized on their way to addresses across England, Wales, and Scotland in the past two years, it has emerged.

Awareness of the medication, which can be used to end a pregnancy, has increased in recent years leaving women in Britain at risk of criminal prosecution and life behind bars.

Hundreds of abortion pills intercepted

There was a 75-fold increase in the number of abortion pills seized between 2013 and 2016, data from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) shows.

In 2016 some 375 pills were intercepted compared with just five pills in 2013. Women who self-induce an abortion at any gestation in pregnancy are committing an offence punishable by up to life imprisonment – yet the majority of people are unaware of this, the leading provider of abortion services in the UK has warned.

Life imprisonment for inducing abortion

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (Bpas), which is calling for abortion to be decriminalised to protect women from criminal sanctions, has previously found fewer than one in eight Britons are aware of current laws regarding terminating a pregnancy.

While buying prescription medication is not an offence, under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act any woman who uses medication to procure her own abortion is committing a criminal offence punishable by up to life imprisonment.

The 1967 Abortion Act did not overturn this law, as is commonly thought, but instead provided exemptions to allow abortion where women meet certain requirements and two doctors approve the request for an abortion. Today, any woman who self-induces her own miscarriage the moment of implantation face prosecution.

‘Desperate women’

“Evidence suggests that as awareness of online abortion pills is increasing, so too are the numbers of women using these methods,” said Ann Furedi, chief executive of Bpas.

“It is time to bring women’s reproductive health care into the 21st Century and remove abortion from the criminal law.

“By doing so we would remove the clinically unnecessary legal barriers to treatment that make in-clinic care impossible for some women, and protect those who need to use online pills from prosecution and punishment,” she added.

Ms Furedi urged the “desperate women” considering using pills to contact the charity so staff could help them find a “safe, legal solution”.

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